Search results for: W. Uzair

Authors: Naheed Niaz, Nimra Naeem, Bushra Uzair, Riffat Tahira

Abstract:

Antibacterial activity of different traditional plants essential oils against clinical isolates of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) through disk diffusion method was evaluated. All the tested essential oils, in different concentrations, inhibited growth of S. aureus to varying degrees. Cinnamon and Thyme essential oils were observed to be the “best” against test pathogen. Even at lowest concentration of these essential oils i.e. 25 µl/ml, clear zone of inhibition was recorded 9+0.085mm and 8+0.051mm respectively, and at higher concentrations there was a total reduction in growth of MRSA. The study also focused on analyzing the synergistic effects of essential oils in combination with amoxicillin. Results showed that oregano and pennyroyal mint essential oils which were not very effective alone turned out to be strong synergistic enhancers. The activity increased with increase in concentration of the essential oils. It may be concluded from present results that cinnamon and thyme essential oils could be used as potential antimicrobial source for the treatment of infections caused by Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

Keywords: Staphylococcus aureus, essential oils, antibiotics, combination therapy, minimum inhibitory concentration

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Authors: Muhammad Afzal, Junaid Uzair Satti

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The noise emanating from the ducting of heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system is often attenuated by using the dissipative silencers. Such devices work well for the high-frequency noise but are less operative in the low-frequency noise range. The present study analyzes a reactive silencer comprising expansion chamber of the elastic membranes partitioned symmetrically by a rigid plate. The Mode-Matching scheme has been developed to solve the governing boundary value problem. The orthogonal and non-orthogonal duct modes of acoustic pressures and normal velocities are matched at interfaces. It enables to recast the differential system into the infinite system of linear algebraic of equations, which is, then truncated and inverted for the solution. The truncated solution is validated through the conservation of energy and reconstruction of matching conditions. The results for scattering energy flux and transmission loss are shown against frequency and the dimensions of the chamber. It is seen that the stop-band of the silencer can be shifted to the broadband by changing the dimensions of the chamber and the properties of the elastic membranes. The modeled reactive silencer is more efficient in low frequency regime where the passive devices are least effective.

Keywords: acoustic scattering, elastic membranes mode-matching, reactive silencer

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Authors: Asadullah I. Qazi, Mansoor Ahsan, Zahir Ashraf, Uzair Ahmad

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System identification of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), to acquire its mathematical model, is a significant step in the process of aircraft flight automation. The need for reliable mathematical model is an established requirement for autopilot design, flight simulator development, aircraft performance appraisal, analysis of aircraft modifications, preflight testing of prototype aircraft and investigation of fatigue life and stress distribution etc.  This research is aimed at system identification of a fixed wing UAV by means of specifically designed flight experiment. The purposely designed flight maneuvers were performed on the UAV and aircraft states were recorded during these flights. Acquired data were preprocessed for noise filtering and bias removal followed by parameter estimation of longitudinal dynamics transfer functions using MATLAB system identification toolbox. Black box identification based transfer function models, in response to elevator and throttle inputs, were estimated using least square error   technique. The identification results show a high confidence level and goodness of fit between the estimated model and actual aircraft response.

Keywords: fixed wing UAV, system identification, black box modeling, longitudinal dynamics, least square error

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Authors: Izani Uzair Zubair, Mohd Ismail Ibrahim, Mohd Nazri Shafei, Hassan Merican Omar Naina Merican, Mohamad Sabri Othman, Mohd Izmi Ahmad Ibrahim, Rasilah Ramli, Rajpal Singh Karam Singh

Abstract:

Nurses experience a higher prevalence of low back pain (LBP) and musculoskeletal complaints as compared to other hospital workers. Due to no proper policy related to LBP, the job has exposed them to the problem. Thus, the current study aims to look at the intensity of the problem and factors associated with development of LBP. Method and Tools: A cross sectional study was carried out among 1292 nurses from six public hospitals in Penang. They were randomly selected and those who were pregnant and have been diagnosed to have LBP were excluded. A Malay validated BACK Questionnaire was used. The associated factors were determined by using multiple logistic regression from SPSS version 20.0. Result: Most of the respondents were at mean age 30 years old and had mean working experience 86 months. The prevalence of LBP was identified as 76% (95% CI 74, 82). Factors that were associated with LBP among nurses include lifting a heavy object (OR2.626 (95% CI 1.978, 3.486) p =0.001 and the estimation weight of the lifted object (OR1.443 (95% CI 1.056, 1.970) p =0.021. Conclusion: Nurses who practice lifting heavy object and weight of the object lifted give a significant contribution to the development of LBP. The prevalence of the problem is significantly high. Thus, a proper no weight lifting policy should be considered.

Keywords: low back pain, nurses, Penang public hospital, Penang

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Authors: Muhammad Irfan Aziz, Thomas Owens, Uzair Khaleeq uz Zaman

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The instantaneous and spatial localization for visually impaired people in dynamically changing environments with unexpected hazards and obstacles, is the most demanding and challenging issue faced by the navigation systems today. Since Bluetooth cannot utilize techniques like Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) and Time of Arrival (TOA), it uses received signal strength indicator (RSSI) to measure Receive Signal Strength (RSS). The measurements using RSSI can be improved significantly by improving the existing methodologies related to RSSI. Therefore, the current paper focuses on proposing an improved method using trilateration for localization of Bluetooth devices for visually impaired people. To validate the method, class 2 Bluetooth devices were used along with the development of a software. Experiments were then conducted to obtain surface plots that showed the signal interferences and other environmental effects. Finally, the results obtained show the surface plots for all Bluetooth modules used along with the strong and weak points depicted as per the color codes in red, yellow and blue. It was concluded that the suggested improved method of measuring RSS using trilateration helped to not only measure signal strength affectively but also highlighted how the signal strength can be influenced by atmospheric conditions such as noise, reflections, etc.

Keywords: Bluetooth, indoor/outdoor localization, received signal strength indicator, visually impaired

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Authors: Ibrahim M. Mehedi, Uzair Ansari, Ubaid M. Al-Saggaf, Abdulrahman H. Bajodah

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This paper presents a methodology for balancing a rotary inverted pendulum system using Robust Generalized Dynamic Inversion (RGDI) under influence of parametric variations and external disturbances. In GDI control, dynamic constraints are formulated in the form of asymptotically stable differential equation which encapsulates the control objectives. The constraint differential equations are based on the deviation function of the angular position and its rates from their reference values. The constraint dynamics are inverted using Moore-Penrose Generalized Inverse (MPGI) to realize the control expression. The GDI singularity problem is addressed by augmenting a dynamic scale factor in the interpretation of MPGI which guarantee asymptotically stable position tracking. An additional term based on Sliding Mode Control is appended within GDI control to make it robust against parametric variations, disturbances and tracking performance deterioration due to generalized inversion scaling. The stability of the closed loop system is ensured by using positive definite Lyapunov energy function that guarantees semi-global practically stable position tracking. Numerical simulations are conducted on the dynamic model of rotary inverted pendulum system to analyze the efficiency of proposed RGDI control law. The comparative study is also presented, in which the performance of RGDI control is compared with Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) and is verified through experiments. Numerical simulations and real-time experiments demonstrate better tracking performance abilities and robustness features of RGDI control in the presence of parametric uncertainties and disturbances.

Keywords: generalized dynamic inversion, lyapunov stability, rotary inverted pendulum system, sliding mode control

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Authors: Md. Rafiul Biswas, Uzair Shah, Mohammad Alkayal, Zubair Shah, Othman Althawadi, Kamila Swart

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Background: Social media platforms play a significant role in the mediated consumption of sport, especially so for sport mega-event. The characteristics of Twitter data (e.g., user mentions, retweets, likes, #hashtag) accumulate the users in one ground and spread information widely and quickly. Analysis of Twitter data can reflect the public attitudes, behavior, and sentiment toward a specific event on a larger scale than traditional surveys. Qatar is going to be the first Arab country to host the mega sports event FIFA World Cup 2022 (Q22). Qatar has hosted the FIFA Arab Cup 2021 (FAC21) to serve as a preparation for the mega-event. Objectives: This study investigates public sentiments and experiences about FAC21 and provides an insight to enhance the public experiences for the upcoming Q22. Method: FCA21-related tweets were downloaded using Twitter Academic research API between 01 October 2021 to 18 February 2022. Tweets were divided into three different periods: before T1 (01 Oct 2021 to 29 Nov 2021), during T2 (30 Nov 2021 -18 Dec 2021), and after the FAC21 T3 (19 Dec 2021-18 Feb 2022). The collected tweets were preprocessed in several steps to prepare for analysis; (1) removed duplicate and retweets, (2) removed emojis, punctuation, and stop words (3) normalized tweets using word lemmatization. Then, rule-based classification was applied to remove irrelevant tweets. Next, the twitter-XLM-roBERTa-base model from Huggingface was applied to identify the sentiment in the tweets. Further, state-of-the-art BertTopic modeling will be applied to identify trending topics over different periods. Results: We downloaded 8,669,875 Tweets posted by 2728220 unique users in different languages. Of those, 819,813 unique English tweets were selected in this study. After splitting into three periods, 541630, 138876, and 139307 were from T1, T2, and T3, respectively. Most of the sentiments were neutral, around 60% in different periods. However, the rate of negative sentiment (23%) was high compared to positive sentiment (18%). The analysis indicates negative concerns about FAC21. Therefore, we will apply BerTopic to identify public concerns. This study will permit the investigation of people’s expectations before FAC21 (e.g., stadium, transportation, accommodation, visa, tickets, travel, and other facilities) and ascertain whether these were met. Moreover, it will highlight public expectations and concerns. The findings of this study can assist the event organizers in enhancing implementation plans for Q22. Furthermore, this study can support policymakers with aligning strategies and plans to leverage outstanding outcomes.

Keywords: FIFA Arab Cup, FIFA, Twitter, machine learning

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Authors: Sugam Kale, Arif Uzair Bin Mohammed Roslan, Cindy Lee, Syed Beevee Mohammed Ismail

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Preemptive analgesia is an established concept in the modern practice of anaesthesia. To be most effective, it is best instituted earlier than the surgical stimulus and should last beyond the offset of surgically induced pain till healing is complete. Whereas the start of afferent pain blockade with regional anaesthesia is common, its effect often falls short to cover the entire period of pain impulses making their way to CNS in the post-operative period. We tried to use a combination of two regional anaesthetic techniques used sequentially to overcome this handicap. Madam S., a 56 year old lady, was scheduled for elective surgery for pancreatic cancer. She underwent laparotomy and distal pancreatectomy, splenectomy, bilateral salpingo oophorectomy, and sigmoid colectomy. Surgery was expected to be extensive, and it was presumed that the standard pain relief with PCA with opiates and oral analgesics would not be adequate. After counselling the patient pre-operative about the technique of regional anaesthesia techniques, including epidural catheterization and rectus sheath catheter placement, their benefits, and potential complications, informed consent was obtained. Epidural catheter was placed awake, and general anaesthesia was then induced. Epidural infusion of local anaesthetics was started prior to surgical incision and was continued till 60 hours into the postoperative period. Before skin closure, the surgeons inserted commercially available rectus sheath catheters bilaterally along the midline incision used for laparotomy. After 46 hours post-op, local anaesthetic infusion via these was started as bridging while the epidural infusion rate was tapered off. The epidural catheter was removed at 75 hours. Elastomeric pumps were used to provide local anaesthetic infusion with the ability to vary infusion rates. Acute pain service followed up the patient’s vital signs and effectiveness of pain relief twice daily or more frequently as required. Rectus sheath catheters were removed 137 hours post-op. The patient had good post-op analgesia with the minimal additional analgesic requirement. For the most part, the visual analog score (VAS) for pain remained at 1-3 on a scale of 1 to 10. Haemodynamics remained stable, and surgical recovery was as expected. Minimal opiate requirement after an extensive laparotomy also translates to the early return of intestinal motility. Our experience was encouraging, and we are hoping to extend this combination of two regional anaesthetic techniques to patients undergoing similar surgeries. Epidural analgesia is denser and offers excellent pain relief for both visceral and somatic pain in the first few days after surgery. As the pain intensity grows weaker, rectus sheath block and oral analgesics provide almost the same degree of pain relief after the epidural catheter is removed. We discovered that the background infusion of local anaesthetic down the rectus sheath catherter largely reduced the requirement for other classes of analgesics. We aim to study this further with a larger patient cohort and hope that it may become an established clinical practice that benefits patients everywhere.

Keywords: rectus sheath, epidural infusion, post operative analgesia, elastomeric

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